“Hey, Dirk,” says Tina, sniggering, “you ever heard of this movie Goncharov?”
Dirk drops a stack of five plates.
“Oh, no,” he says.
(Read on AO3 here)
Tina runs for the nearest broom as Dirk runs for the nearest computer. By the time the plate shards are swept up, Dirk has opened about sixty tabs. “This can’t be happening,” he says, clicking on five more links. “It’s not possible.”
“Mm,” says Tina, “seems around you, just about anything’s possible.”
“But Goncharov,” says Dirk, desperately. “It doesn’t exist.”
“Well, duh,” Tina shrugs. “It’s an internet joke. Crowdsourcing a made-up movie. There’s a pret-ty hot love triangle, too - wanna see?”
“No!” says Dirk, flinging up his hands. “It does exist, it just - it shouldn’t. It can’t, not anymore. I already solved that one.”
Tina stops looking for fanart. “Wait,” she says, “Goncharov is a case?”
—
“The mind wipe,” Dirk announces, half an hour later, “has failed.”
Tina, Farah, and Todd blink at him. “What mind wipe?” says Todd finally.
“The Goncharov mind wipe,” says Dirk. “It’s wearing off. Oh, I told Thor it wouldn’t last!”
“Thor?” says Farah.
“Wearing off?” says Todd.
“Wait, so there’s real footage of the hot love triangle?” says Tina.
“Focus!” says Dirk. “This is important! Clearly, the repressed memories are already bleeding through - if this spreads, who knows what will happen!”
“Not us,” says Todd, “since you haven’t told us anything about it.”
Dirk glares at him. “It’s very simple,” he says. “Loki, god of mischief, weaseled his way into a theatrical re-release of Martin Scorsese’s most famous mafia movie, in an attempt to spread his mind-controlling message to a wider audience - and also possibly for a chance to star alongside famed actor Robert DeNiro, though I have to say, Loki’s acting chops were nowhere near as professional –”
“Loki is in Goncharov?” says Tina, bouncing up and down. “Who is he? Not Andrey? Oh - Katya?”
“Er,” says Dirk, “frozen… Steve?”
“Ice pick Joe?!” says Tina.
“Wait - back up,” says Farah, getting off the couch and heading for one of the six whiteboards scattered around the agency (Dirk refuses to erase any “essential records,” which includes Mona’s doodles, Farah’s grocery lists, Todd’s drunk-after-midnight song lyrics, and Dirk’s confusing string walls, so in lieu of reuse, they just keep buying more). “Mind-controlling message? About - what, exactly?”
“World domination,” says Dirk. “What else?”
“What, like, make way for our mythological Norse overlords?” says Todd.
“Todd,” says Dirk, “the art of mind control is that of subtle insinuation. The smallest nudge to a person’s most seemingly innocuous impulse might one day bring about Ragnarok itself. The pathways of the human brain are far beyond any of us to begin to fathom.”
Todd exchanges glances with Tina. “So…” he says.
“So “Make way for our mythological Norse overlords” was embedded in the credits, yes,” says Dirk.
Farah pauses halfway through busily scribbling a semi-coherent list of Dirk’s far-from-coherent retelling. “If it’s just the credits,” she says, “couldn’t you replace that segment? Instead of mind-wiping the entire human race?”
“Yeah, who watches the credits, anyway?” says Tina. “Farah, you don’t count, no one else cares about the back-up apprentice costume designer.”
“Yes, that was my suggestion,” says Dirk, “but I was, er, overruled. Thor doesn’t generally go in for half-measures, in my experience.”
“And how extensive is that experience?” says Tina.
“We’re getting off-track,” says Dirk quickly. “The important thing is, the mind-wipe wore off. And if everyone suddenly remembers Goncharov, they’ll also remember the credits. And if they remember the credits…”
“Make way for Loki,” says Todd gloomily.
Everyone stares at the whiteboard.
“Okay,” says Farah, clapping her hands together, “so all we have to do is find Thor, find the mind-wipe technology, debug the mind-wipe technology so it works this time, figure out how to deploy it correctly, and get Thor to mind-wipe the entire human race a second time, before everyone remembers Goncharov and Loki comes back. If he’s not back already.”
Everyone stares at Farah.
The doorbell rings, and then the door bursts open. “DIRK GENTLY!” roars a voice. “Hail and well met!”
—
“You broke the mind wipe box?” says Dirk, aghast.
Thor squirms on the couch. Thor is the only one on the couch, because he takes up most of the couch. Farah is still by the whiteboard, and Todd and Tina are standing by Dirk, completely failing not to stare.
“I didn’t break it!” Thor protests. “I simply - misplaced it. Onto a chair. Which I then sat on. Which was, honestly, far worse for me than for that box, given all the unpleasantly sharp components.”
Todd shakes his head and wishes Thor didn’t sound so much like Dirk, with a deeper voice and a slightly different accent. It’s hurting his brain. He tries and fails to stop looking at Thor’s bare arms. They take up an unfair amount of his field of view.
“Thor,” says Dirk, putting his hands on his hips, “we’ve talked about this. You must be more careful where you sit.”
“Again,” says Thor, “I did not know that hat was valuable.”
“It was cursed!” Dirk squawks.
“Can everyone focus!” says Farah. “Thor, do you have the box with you?”
Thor shifts slightly and pulls out a mangled cube. It looks like a movie prop that, well, someone has sat on. The translucent blue sides are faded and dusty, and wires are poking out of the middle.
“...Sorry,” says Thor.
Tina squints at the box. “You’re tellin’ me this thing is why I forgot the boat scene?” she says. “I dressed up as the boat scene for Halloween!”
“...You were a boat?” says Todd.
“I was six,” says Tina, “and in retrospect, the homoerotic overtones went way over my head. Cool costume, though.”
Farah, meanwhile, examines the box. “This isn’t too bad,” she says. “It should definitely be fixable. Probably. Almost certainly.”
“If only we still had Patrick’s lab,” Dirk sighs.
Farah’s eyes twitch sideways. “Well…” she says.
The door opens again. “Farah!” yells Lydia. “Have you heard of this movie Goncharov?”
—
“Of course I can fix it,” says Lydia.
Everyone sits forward on their respective couch, couch armrests, chairs, or, in Dirk’s case, table. “You can?” says Thor.
“Yeah,” Lydia shrugs. “This is all 80s tech - it’s built to last. These transistors are comically huge. If you want, I can swap it out for new stuff - might take a little longer, but it’d be, like, credit card sized.”
“Could you really?” says Dirk. “Is this one of those Boring Law things?”
“Whatever’s fastest,” says Farah, before Dirk can fall down another endless hole of knowledge he’ll forget till his next case. “Lydia, do you have everything you need here?”
“Yeah, it’s all at my bench. Give me a sec.”
Lydia takes off towards the workbench Farah set up two months into Lydia’s Belize stay, and the rest of them sit back to wait. Dirk hums something under his breath. Farah goes back to writing on the whiteboard.
“So,” says Tina to Thor, after a moment of silence, “did you two ever…”
“I’ll order a pizza,” says Todd, shooting up.
—
Todd barely gets back off the phone before Lydia returns with the repaired device.
“That’s it?” says Tina, frowning at the cube.
“It’s an ancient artifact of my people,” says Thor.
“Which you sat on,” says Dirk.
“Something I learned from my dad,” says Lydia, “is that sometimes the smallest things cause the most problems. Even when the tech is ancient. Maybe especially then.”
She sets the cube on the table and taps something on the side. A blue glow creeps up the sides. The cube begins to pulse faintly, seeming to draw space in around it. It’s mesmerizing, in an unsettling sort of way.
“...Yeah, I hate that,” says Tina.
Dirk shudders. “Thor, can you…” he says.
Thor places one large hand over the cube, cutting off the hypnotic light. “I shall need a higher vantage point,” he says. “Wait for my signal.” He’s out the door before anyone can say anything else, to possibly everyone’s relief. A second later, there’s a flash of lightning, and a resounding boom of thunder, and everyone jumps as though they’ve been shocked.
“Well!” says Dirk, shaking himself and standing up. “That was… a thing.”
“Wait - that’s it?” says Todd. “We met Thor, and now he’s just… gone?”
“Yes, that’s how he generally operates,” says Dirk over his shoulder. “It’s part of the reason we… well.”
“Part of the reason you what?” says Tina.
“Popcorn, anyone?” says Dirk.
“Popcorn?” says Farah. “Why?”
“Why, for the movie, of course,” says Dirk, then pauses. “Er. I think.”
“No, there was a movie,” says Todd. “Wasn’t there? Something about - um - shit.”
Tina props her legs up on the table. “Hey, Far,” she says, “what’s up with your handwriting today? That whiteboard’s a mess.”
Farah looks at the whiteboard, where a whole square of notes has gotten completely smudged. “...Huh,” she says. “Must’ve slipped.”
“Pizza’s here,” says Lydia from the doorway, where none of them heard a knock.
“Pizza!” exclaims Dirk, and everyone entirely forgets what they were ever worried about.
(And somewhere, deep underground, Loki sighs and logs offline, thwarted again from his latest and nearly successful plan to escape at last.)
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Hobie Brown variant OC:
I finally decided to make Symbiote!Hobie (nicknamed SH by Hobie, which over time turned into Sage) his own thing, cause I've made so many changes to him that I've decided he's just gonna be another version of Hobie from another dimension.
I basically came up with him when thinking about what it would take for Hobie to truly bond with a symbiote and this is what I came up with.
While he's technically Hobie too I'm gonna refer to him as Sage in this post to avoid confusion <3
Gonna start with his appearance and then move on to his origins and how he got involved with the Spider-Society:
Disclaimer: I cannot draw so I haven't even attempted at drawing his face cause I know I'd never be able to draw him in a way I'd like- So I did the next best thing:
(He has a normal face I just tried to find a way for me to draw him without drawing his face lol)
Pictured above is Sage and his symbiote K.A.T (and their symbiote form- yeah it's the same as Venom!Hobie cause I like the design lol)
He looks like Hobie but younger- he's around 11 when he's bitten by the spider and fused with K.A.T - he's around 12 when he gets introduced to the Spider-Society
He's got short hair as it was completely shaved off when he got caught by Oscorp - more about this under his origins - he wants to let it grow out after meeting Hobie and being inspired by his approach to his looks (he really looks up to Hobie but don't tell anyone I said that!)
His left iris is white as a result of the symbiote DNA being fused to him. He can make it match his right eye if he concentrates but only really bothers to do so if he feels it draws too much attention
After meeting Hobie he helps Sage get a few piercings of his own
He usually wears a hoodie and/or a mask to hide his face - he's super paranoid and does his best to hide himself from others
Never goes anywhere without his noice cancelling earmuffs - he's got enhanced senses due to his spider powers but they can be a bit of a nuisance since he's also sensitive to loud noises due to his symbiote...
He also usually wears sunglasses to shield himself from sensory overload as he was subjected to it a lot as part of the experiments he was put through at Oscorp - and thus getting his senses overstimulated can result in panic attacks, so he does what he can to avoid it + it hides his eyes as well
K.A.T (Killing Authority-opposing Targets) is Sage's symbiote
It usually stays hidden unless they're alone or around people they trust/already knows about its presence.
If it does show itself it'll usually stay on Sage's shoulder or sit in his lap, it's still tethered to him so it can't go that far without him - not that it really wants to anyways
The reason K.A.T takes this form is that Sage is a cat person and it used it as a method to make him like it more when they first "met" + petting it helped Sage calm down and still does
K.A.T is still made of the same goo as regular symbiotes so it does not feel like petting a cat at all- Sage doesn't mind but most other people get suprised when they first touch it
If it likes someone it'll rub itself against their legs and mimic purring noises - if it dislikes someone it'll hiss and arch its back at them
K.A.T is a more animalistic symbiote and mainly communicates with Sage by letting him feel its emotions instead of speaking to him
To avoid making the post even longer than it's already gonna be I'll link to this post where I go into more detail about the design of thier Symbiote form instead of describing it here too ^^'.
This was originally supposed to be a short summary but I've realised I'm incapable of making short posts when it comes to stuff like this:
Origin:
Sage is a younger version of Hobie Brown. (11 years old when bitten by the spider and fused with his symbiote)
Sage and K.A.T "met" at one of Oscorp's labs
He was living as a homeless kid (having escaped an abusive household a few months prior)
He was bitten by a radioactive spider while looking for a place to spend the night.
He got very sick from the bite and was easily captured by Oscorp goons looking for new test subjects in the streets
Despite his young age Sage is a more ruthless Hobie variant, in part due to his upbringing and due to his symbiote (and the trauma they both go through at the hands of Oscorp)
K.A.T was a new kind of experimental symbiote that was set to be terminated due to it killing all its previous hosts - Sage was their last attempt at fusing it with someone
They decide to fuse it with Sage as he was deemed indisposable due to him seeming more dead than alive - suffering from the venom of spider bite at the time - and thus it wouldn't be a problem if the symbiote killed him too
Since the spider bite was still changing his DNA as he got fused with K.A.T some of its DNA got fused with him as well as a "side effect" during the process
Due to this it's incredibly hard (if not impossible) to seperate the symbiote from Sage without severely hurting them both
His body develops organic web shooters when it fuses with K.A.T - the webs are black and can be shot from either of his 4 arms when in his symbiote form (they can also be shot regularly while in his human form)
Sage develops enhanced senses and a taste for human flesh after being fused with K.A.T - he also has enhanced senses from the spider bite - making it easy to overstimulate his senses and overwhelm him before he learns to get it more under control
Since Sage's gotten powers from both the spider bite and the symbiote they quickly become the subjects for many inhumane and painful experiments as the scientists futilely try to figure out how to replicate the symbiote (as they're unaware of the spider bite, thinking the symbiote alone is behind Sage's new powers)
The main scientist behind the experiments is this dimension's version of Peter Parker!
Sage eventually manages to escape the lab during one of their many tests- killing as many guards and scientists on his way out as possible - and eating some of them as well
As a result of their treatment at the lab + his past with his abusive foster family, both Sage and K.A.T have developed a deep distrust to other people - at this point they both consider the other their only friend
Sage goes back to living as a homeless kid, avoiding people as best as he can, but he's also got an insatiable taste for human flesh as well!
He will usually target anyone associated with Oscorp when he's hungry (if none are available cops are the next best thing- his dimension is just as corrupt as -138 Hobie's dimension)
He doesn't feel bad about killing but will still try not to harm civilians (emphasis on try- sometimes the hunger gets the best of him)
Due to his senses being extra sensitive + his paranoia from his experiences at the lab and his foster homes, he tries to avoid crowded and noisy places - This all leads to him being more active at night while he usually tries to lay low and hide during the day.
He lived like this for months until a certain event changed that:
First encounter with the Spider-Society
Sage's dimension is blacklisted meaning people from the Spider-Society aren't allowed to go there (cause a spider-person who's embracing their symbiote instead of resisting it is deemed unsafe by Miguel and thus best to be avoided)
Sage does still get introduced to the spider-society albeit through a rather unconventional way:
- One day a portal opens up and pulls Sage through it, sending him to another dimension as an anomaly
Having no idea about what's going on, and being scared and confused about the whole situation, he does his best to lay low and avoid other people.
Because of this he spends a lot of time in the other dimension before the society discovers signs of an anormaly - glitched objects like seen when Kingpen uses the collider in itsv, or the museum that the Vulture appears in in atsv
Sage eventually has his first run in with other spider people when his hunger gets the best of him and he becomes more careless as he turns into his symbiote form to go look for prey
Here he encounters Gwen and Peter B as they're looking for the anomaly causing things to glitch out in the dimension
Not knowing he's a spider person and an actual child, Peter and Gwen attack him as they always do with anomalies - it also doesn't help that Sage doesn't exactly look friendly when in his symbiote form.
He fights back cause these masked people attacked him for no reason so they must be bad guys and of course he's gonna defend himself - it also doesn't help that he's starving and thus not thinking clearly at this point.
Unfortunately for him, these guys have high frequency equipment to deal with symbiotes and thus they manage to subdue him, but not before he manages to fight back, revealing his organic webbing which tips Gwen and Peter off to him having spider powers as well
He's subdued and forced into an electric cage (which brings back a lot of unpleasant memories from his time at Oscorp) and sent to the Spider-Society afterwards
When he arrives at the Society he quickly gets overstimulated and has a panic attack and lashes out in a desperate attempt at escaping his electric cage - also seeing the face of the scientist who tortured him for months everywhere certainly didn't help
Gwen then uses a high-frequency device made to combat symbiotes to force him to revert back to his human form
She immediately recognises him as a young version of -138 Hobie
Her and Peter both panic cause 1. They realise they basically beat up a kid and locked him up. 2. That kid has a symbiote! 3. That kid is a younger version of another spider-person they both know (and who they both know has a very long and strained history with symbiotes!)
Miguel gets involved and a discussion begins about whether they should try and seperate Hobie (Sage) and his symbiote
- The other spiders mean well by this but Sage and K.A.T both panic at the thought of being separated - at this point they really view the other as their only friend as it's been them against the world ever since they fused
Sage, still panicking, tries to protest but they won't listen as they view him as a kid who doesn't know what's best for him
Sage is taken to the room with all the villains while they discuss what to do with him
Here Margo sees Sage and K.A.T comforting each other, K.A.T manifesting physically in Sage's lap, being hugged tightly by Sage as he promises it he'll never let anyone separate them
Seeing this, Margo takes pity on them and 'accidentally' sends them home before the other spiders get a chance to try and remove K.A.T from Sage.
Relationships with other spider-people
Some time later Sage has an encounter with Hobie who found out about the whole mess - despite Miguel ordering Gwen and Peter not to tell him
While Hobie isn't exactly a fan of symbiotes he first and foremost sees Sage as a traumatised homeless kid in need of safety and stability
Hobie offers Sage to stay at his boat whenever he wants (as long as he promises not to eat anyone while he's there), he also gives him one of his bootleg watches so he can come and go as he pleases (and explains that he can also use it to get home to his own dimension if he's ever unwillingly sent to another dimension again)
Sage declines at first but over time he slowly opens up to Hobie and begins to trust him
(He also secretly looks up to Hobie once he trusts him, cause who doesn't? He's an older version of himself who's got a place to call his home, one that he opens up to strangers in need such as himself, he uses his powers for good and not just to survive. He's not afraid to be who he is and draw attention to himself - something Sage has been too afraid to do ever since his time at Oscorp. He's got friends and people he trusts. - all things that Sage wants too but doesn't believe he'll ever have) Also he'll never admit that he looks up to Hobie but he can tell anyways
Hobie's the one that gives Sage his nickname, it started as SH but over time it turned into Sage instead, though he doen't mind being called Hobie as well, it's just easier to go by Sage when both he and Hobie are present.
He still doesn't trust people, especially not the Spider-Society after their first meeting, which made it very awkward when Gwen showed up to visit Hobie while Sage was there - luckily Hobie managed to interfere before they beat each other up too much...
(He trusts Margo a bit as well since she 'saved' him from the Spider-Society - also it's nice to be around someone who doesn't smell like food since she's an avatar and not made of flesh and blood)
He currently lives at Hobie's boat, switching between it and his own dimension as he pleases
Hobie did his best to hide it but he was rather freaked out by K.A.T's presence in the beginning, he did his best to supress it cause he genuinely wants to help Sage
Hobie mentors him in how to use his Spider Powers and tries to give him a moral compass to at least prevent him from eating civilians when he gets too hungry - He usually targets cops or people working for Oscorp but the hungrier he gets the less picky he is
Another reason Hobie took him in is because he knows ostracising someone won't make them a better person and while Hobie doesn't believe in deciding what's best for others he still knows life will be a bit easier for Sage if he doesn't just kill whoever he wants whenever he wants - impulse control is important when you have a cannibalistic symbiote in your body.
- Hobie still dislikes symbiotes but he respects Sage's choice to keep his and does his best to help him control some of the more violent urges that come with a symbiote.
Hobie introduces Sage to his punk ideologies and slowly introduces him to the punk community
Hobie also introduces him to some of his friends but it's a slow process due to Sage having a hard time trusting people - especially spider-people after his Spider-Society encounter
Some of the spider-people also have a hard time opening up to him because of his symbiote
But Hobie's good at making a safe space for Sage to feel like he can slowly start to open up to others
For the first time in years Sage feels like he has someone (besides K.A.T) he can trust and over time he starts to view Hobie as his older brother
And that's that folks! (at least for now)
To the one person who actually bothered to read all of this - know that I'm infinitely grateful that you took your time to read about my boy <3
- I initially tried to keep this short but I gave up cause Sage has been living rent free in my head for weeks and it feels so nice to finally flesh him out and write about him!
You know I couldn't resist making my first oc angsty - but at least he ends up doing better than where he started.
Hopefully you guys like him too! If you have any questions please let me know, I could talk about him forever <3
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